Monday, August 29, 2016

UPDATE: Appears the video of Red Mountain Pass in heavy rain has been pulled. Sorry.When you visit Colorado be sure to drive Hwy 550, Red Mountain Pass.Hint: Easier on the nerves to drive from Ouray to Silverton.https://www.facebook.com/Silverton-Extreme-Colorado-1103583436343070/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED&fref=nfAfter connecting, scroll down one.

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Correction. It was three drunk kids, 4 am, four door pickup doing an estimated 100+ mph. There were fatalities.Going East on US 26 entering Mitchell, NE
you go around a sweeping left hand turn, unless you are in a large truck and
don’t make the curve. Then you drive thru a building and damage several used
tractors.

Per the other driver on my route who passed by soon after the
accident, the truck engine was lying in
the street. Things like this keep my sister employed.

Friday, August 19, 2016

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Gaggle of Wild Hawgs infesting my favorite lunch place. My schedule doesn't allow for much standing in line. This particular group was Norwegian. Rude, they were. Passed on lunch.This little store in Kimbal, NE has a super clean kitchen. The food isn't that great but is edible and I'm not worried about getting sick eating it. Appears to be family owned and they are the usual friendly Nebraska folks.Some nice trophy bucks for someone this hunting season.

Saturday, August 13, 2016

At the very start, this isn’t original thinking
on my part. Not seeing much on current forums, maybe it is time to bring it up
again.

Due to oil revenue, many Islamic
countries are awash in money. In particular, Saudi Arabia has funded, and
continues to fund, terrorism. Think 9/11.

Our country has a large number of venal politicians.
The Clintons, in particular, have become extremely wealthy from donations to their "charities".

Barack Obama when he first ran for office
was able to raise huge sums from many, many “small” donations, small enough
that individual donors didn’t need to be identified by law.

The Executive Branch is now filled at all
levels with Muslims, up to and including the head of the CIA. The CIA? WTF?

Maybe the answer to why so many things
are going wrong in our country is the result of a ruthless and ongoing attack
against us by Saudi Arabia and others using petrodollars to undermine and
weaken us. Probably others (George Soros comes to mind) have the same goal. Are
they working together?

What to do? Facilitate a regime change in
Saudi Arabia?

Elect a President that hasn’t been bought
by oil money?

For damn sure, Shillary will sell every asset
we have to further her and Bill’s wealth IMO. YMMV

Decided to add this. Came to me as an email.

Subj: Ponder this!!

Subject:If you don't have enough to worry about - ponder this

-- Here’s a very scary thought…………..

I had to take my vehicle to the mechanic the other day for service. The Service Manager, Pete, gave me a ride home and on the way he told me his theory about the upcoming election and the next four years of U.S. government. At first I thought it a bit far fetched. But as I listened to him it began to make sense, scary sense…

“I believe that Hillary Clinton will win the election in November,” Pete began. “Then, sometime between November and January, Hillary will be indicted. The IRS is now investigating the Clinton Foundation and the whole e-mail thing isn’t over yet. ”“Once under indictment she won’t be able to assume the Office of the President in January. Tim Kaine, who will not actually be the Vice President because neither he nor Hillary have been inaugurated, cannot assume the Presidency.” “The Speaker of the House can’t move up to it because there is already a sitting President and Vice President. So President Obama, in an Executive Order citing “emergency situation,” gives himself another four years in office is the only way possible.”

Pete believes Obama has been planning this for a while now, knowing he has enough on Hillary to indict her. Had the Attorney General indicted her based on evidence from the FBI this plan wouldn’t have worked because the DNC would have quickly come up with another candidateIf you think about it, it’s not that outrageous. Many people on the left, including the President, want Obama to stay another four years. The law prohibits him from being re-elected so the only ways he can do it is by declaring martial law and suspending the election (which would be a very negative thing for the country) or to declare himself still President because the elected candidate cannot assume her duties. The latter makes more sense and is actually more feasible. And since it’s never been done before, it would set a precedent that would be difficult to challenge. Of course, if Trump wins the election none of this is going to happen. But what if Pete is correct? Four more years of Obama and a mostly useless Republican House and Senate would give Obama the time he needs to continue destroying changing the country to fit his stated goals. I thanked Pete for the ride home – and for messing up my day. Now I’ve got more things to worry about!

Friday, August 12, 2016

At the Post Office picking up mail.
People watching. Young lady parked and got out of her car. Black low riding
jeans, studded belt, and snug black shirt. Maybe 5’ tall. Maybe 90 lbs. She
walked with an air of complete confidence and purpose.

Inside the Post Office she went to her
box which is within five feet of mine. Took her mail to the counter. In flash, from out of nowhere, she had a 3”
blade folding knife, opened with one hand, and proceeded to slit open envelopes. She was so quick and smooth spec warriors
would be impressed.

It occurred to me her air of competence and
confidence was because she knew she could defend herself. I find that a great
thing.

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Just when one hazard of the job tapers
off, we get another, the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.

For the past six weeks or so the
harvesting crews have been active. A convoy of one or more huge over wide combines
on trailers, each followed by a truck pulling the harvester head, some 30’
wide, on another trailer. Several grain haulers, truck and 53’ trailer,
followed by one of more RV’s, and miscellaneous vehicles moving from field to
field. They can be difficult to pass.

Add the traffic going to and from
Sturgis, SD, and the drive can be interesting.

One can admire those who make the trip
all the way on motorcycles. Less so those pulling their motorcycles on trailers,
and there are probably more of those than the riders. Posers.

A wet winter and spring is a blessing but………
Now a hot summer has arrived and the prairie is drying out just in time for the
monsoon season.

Those thunderstorms produce a narrow, but intense, path of moisture while the lightning goes
everywhere. Lots of work for the fire crews. Lots of flash floods to trap the
unwary. The Platte at Gurnsey is at near flood stage and the water muddy.

For larger pictures. https://www.dropbox.com/sc/5pebjbm9hschwxf/AADLZQsN9w3gzVrUuAzyVSqRahttps://www.dropbox.com/sc/vwbfekssypk50du/AADe4PgSVqbWbrPM5uqM91fJaNOTE: Having a few problems mastering Dropbox. Please have patience.

1960 saw the death of a close friend in a
dumb car wreck. It is about 42 miles from Steamboat Springs, CO to Craig, CO.
How fast you could drive it was a local tradition. Boasts of doing it in 22
minutes abounded but were probably bullshit. There are few straight sections
more than two miles in length, two small towns along the way (three at that
time), and a section along a cliff prone to rock slides.

My friend, Tad Brown, was one of two
passengers in a red 1960 Chevy convertible. The driver’s parents were wealthy.
The driver was going to set a new record. Just outside of Steamboat, westbound,
he hit a mailbox set in a milk can full
of cement, dead center of his steering
column, breaking it. The car went into
the ditch and started rolling. The driver and one passenger survived. Tad didn’t.

Tad was one of my first friends when my
parents settled in Steamboat. His sister, Ginger, was my first crush. His
father, a Chiropractor, moved his practice to Craig. Despite the distance, Tad,
Ginger and I stayed in touch. Alas, Ginger found a boyfriend in Craig.

Tad’s parents held an open casket
funeral. The Mortuary did not do any cosmetic work. We high schoolers walked by
and saw a face so battered as to be unrecognizable. You can only guess how many
attitudes were adjusted that afternoon. I know mine was. While I never talked
to his parents, I’m sure that was the effect they wanted; to keep some other
parents from knowing their grief.

We humans never know why fate takes one
of us and not another, or us. Maybe we must die to find out. My hope is I will
never bury one of my children.

Thursday, August 4, 2016

h/t to BZ for the descriptive label for what passes for news reporting in this country.http://bloviatingzeppelin.net/horror-all-lives-matter-on-back-of-police-cars/Story after story has Trump doing something wrong even if the press needs to make it up (Trump has crying baby removed from rally). Trump is slipping in the polls. Blah, blah, blah. The Republican Party insiders are in a panic. Trump may drop out. If the story isn't blatantly anti-Trump, there always seems to be an undertone of glee for anything Trump negative. Obvious the "media" is frustrated that all us dummies can't be taught anything by them. Why won't we listen?Let me say I'm not an enthusiastic Trump supporter. I'm an enthusiastic, "Anybody but Shillary" supporter. Going back to the start of the primaries, the media has been saying all this crap. Didn't stop him from winning the nomination. What it does is get his name out in front of more people at no financial cost to him. Oh, isn't he dumb?I'm spared all the TV advertising. Unless the Seahawks are on (not often in Bronco country), I don't turn it on. I'm serious. The TV hasn't been turned on for months. Comcast shoves the TV down my throat as part of my internet connection. My sympathy for those of you who must endure all those ads.This internet gadget has screwed the media out of their monopoly. Beats the hell out of Letters to The Editor. Beats the old mimeograph tracks circulated in the 60's. Even a grumpy old senior like myself can get his opinions out to the fifty or so readers of this blog. Many bloggers reach a thousand or more a day. Maybe that is why the (P)regressives keep bleating about "net neutrality".Nothing brilliant here, and I'm certainly not the first to point out how the internet has castrated the American Media Maggots. I'm just hoping Trump is smart enough to use all the tools at his disposal to defeat the most corrupt politician ever to run for President.

Monday, August 1, 2016

Judging from comments, some must have
found the original post “interesting”. Hoped to amuse people.

On a serious note, I would like to expand
on my management practices. In one of my college classes, the textbook author
discussed, “The Industrial Law of Effect”. This was in the 1960’s and I have
long since forgotten the author and book title.
The author may have been inspired by the classic, Law of Effect.

As modified, the author said that in any organization,
the employees will intuitively learn what management’s dominant desire is, not
expressed desire, and give it to them.
As an illustration, a bank teller is rude to a customer knowing management’s dominant desire was for the teller’s till balance
exactly each day. Rude to a customer? Tsk, tsk. Till not balance? Look for
another job. I’ve forgotten a lot from those classes but that has stuck with me
over the years.

Tank’s variation. You better damn well
know what you want in very specific terms or you will have a bunch of unhappy
and unproductive employees. In the case of the skylight firm, I wanted a
quality product produced on time with minimum waste and rework. On a personal
level, I didn’t expect, or want, anyone to kiss my ass.

As stated, I hired and promoted on
ability. My usual crew had many people others wouldn’t hire. Within the day to
day operation, I wouldn’t stand for cliques. Every employee’s dignity was to be
respected. Should I walk by the break room and see employees being shunned or
ignored (not included in the lunch group) you can believe the foremen/women
would soon have an unpleasant closed door meeting in my office. That policy
extended to the occasional “temp”. They may be with us for a short time but
their impressions, as communicated to their social circles, would persist for
weeks or longer.

One example of how this worked. We had an
order for 10,000 residential DIY type skylights from Pay n Pac Stores (since
acquired by Lowe’s). We had exactly three returned as defective and it was
clear they had been dropped.

The skylight company owner was an
absentee type from “Cali” who was involved with “the industry”. In other words
he was financing art films and the like. Soon he sold out to a large company whose
main business was suspended ceiling systems. Their management soon started
trying to make my square peg operation fit their round holes. Never understood
that. If you have highly productive square pegs, make some square holes. Worse,
everything they did was fucked up and needed reworked. As an example, they
provided a ceiling system for an Alaska State Ferry without ever insuring the
ceiling panels met USCG requirements. I had to pull my crew off our work and
spend six weeks redoing the ferry during winter layup in Seattle. Oh yah, the
ferry was also the winter hotel for ferry employees. My folks did a great job
to the point the ferry employees invited them to their Christmas party. Super
party. Several Seattle Bondsmen had a good week.

I could see the writing on the wall. Got
a chance to work the season putting in modular condos in Kodiak so we parted
ways. Other than the usual brown bottle flu, the Kodiak job went well. The old
military P’s. Prior planning prevents piss poor performance.

Once had a boss that taught me many
valuable lessons. He was an asshole’s asshole but when you put your ass on the
line every day you earned his respect. One lesson. “ We have procedures for 90%
of our business. This is so we don’t reinvent the wheel every week. The way we
handle the other 10% is the difference between a profitable business and a bureaucracy.
As long as I’m running this place, it
will never be a bureaucracy”. He was a recovering Boeing engineer with a
Harvard MBA.

Over the years my methods didn’t make me
many friends. What I can look back with some satisfaction is the respect given
to me by several individuals whose accomplishments in business far over shadow
mine. Always, I prefer to be respected more than liked.

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About Me

Semi retired road warrior, car salesman, occasional repo man. Father of three fine sons. Once a Blue Dog Democrat. Once a soldier; once a pilot. Rolling along life's highway proving there is no fool like an old fool.